I've run into similar problems. I've found that Isopropyl Alcohol is far to good at it's job as a thinner. It'll strip just about anything. What are you using for panel lining?I paint with acrylics top coat it with future floor wax then panel line with enamels and clean up with enamel thinners. Hope that helps.

Occasionally my hands will shake as well. The beast advice I can offer is to brace your hand. I'll try to explain. If I'm holding the piece I'm painting/applying decals/masking to I brace my other hand against it, by resting the heel of my hand against it. Alternatively you could rest both elbows on the table and steady one hand with the other. I really hope that makes sense.

I've been on a miniature kick and building a lot of Games Workshop models recently but this one I feel fits well enough to post here. A friend got these for me over a year ago. I fell in love with the retro feel when I first saw them. Made a few mistakes but learned a lot on this build.

All right finally done, and up on the wire. I give you my GM Type C Heavy Weapon Refit. I'm fairly happy with it, I could have done more but the Deadline crept up on me and I had trouble fighting procrastination. Went with a fairly simple color scheme (Unfortunately a bit of the detail is washed out in the pictures) toyed some different painting techniques with this build not all successful. I'm happy with the mods I've done. Mostly I'm just happy to get this project finished. Hope you all like it.